


This is the Tale in which Lauren is Death

by PixelWayve



Category: Unspecified Fandom
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 19:52:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18289109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PixelWayve/pseuds/PixelWayve
Summary: Correlation is causation.Lauren appears on every album that has a bittersweet ending or ends in tragedy.Lauren does not appear on the one album with a happy ending.Conclusion: Lauren is the source of all our pain.





	This is the Tale in which Lauren is Death

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written after the release of The Forgotten Meme, but before the release of The Broken Cyborg
> 
> Thank you Lauren for being such a good sport about all this <3

The tale begins with a storyteller Musician who has a vision for a steampunk opera. He’ll create a wondrous city with red headed gangsters and talking mice and sentient plants. The story would be told through melodies of tangos and ballads, the like of which have never been heard before. As for the plot, well, he thinks that it’ll be fun to play around with death. But it won’t be a tragedy; above all else the Musician wants to prove that there is good in this world. He's a bit naive, but he's passionate and true, and he possesses real talent. Thus, a new narrative is born.

As the city begins to form within his imagination’s eye, the Musician realizes that he alone is not enough to tell this story. A tale this grand requires more voices in order for it to shine so bright and reach its full potential. So he goes out in search of others to join his vision. 

And Death herself comes out to play.

She’s heard rumors of a new narrative and a city that dares to breach her realm of the dead. Naturally, she’s curious. She’s not opposed to allowing some of her dead subjects to be raised back to life, as long as they are returned to her in the end. To be quite honest, the idea promises to provide the most amusement that she’s had in the last couple millennia. But this is her domain that the Musician is treading on. Death will make sure that he and his ideas stay in line. 

She appears before the Musician and volunteers for the role. As soon as the Musician hears Death sing, he knows that her voice is exactly what his story needs. Death’s singing is enchanting, otherworldly even. And her voice is beautifully haunting in such a way that fits ever so perfectly into a tale where the dead come back to life.

He tells her that she has the voice of an angel. Death laughs, and her smile holds an ironic twist that the Musician doesn’t quite catch. 

Death agrees to sing for him, with one condition: she shall have a final say in the writing of the plot. The Musician readily agrees. He can't believe his luck, finding a voice that’s so perfectly suited to his story. He hasn’t realized he’s made a deal with Death. At least, not yet he hasn’t. 

Together, the Musician and Death work on completing the story. She reads through the rough draft and chastices the Musician. The savior cannot be allowed to live. That’s not the proper way to finish this tale. The circles cannot stop until this family line has been cut down. This conclusion, it’s far too happy and hopeful. A bittersweet ending is what this narrative needs. 

Reluctantly, the Musician alters the story as she suggests. Death smiles. 

The narrative is complete and ready to be performed. With Death singing at his side, the Musician watches in astonishment as his story comes to life. More than a mere metaphor, his beloved city really, truly comes to life. The streets are solid cobblestone and his characters have flesh and blood. The Musician marvels as his imagination transforms into reality, but his joy is short lived. His characters are real, but so is their pain. Their broken dreams, their cycles of suffering, their deaths, the Musician collapses under the tremendous weight of it all. 

When the tale is over Death collects her due, gathering up all of the dead characters to be carried back to her realm of unceasing darkness. She laughs and departs, leaving the Musician alone in the empty streets with a hollow feeling. That wasn’t the story he intended to write. 

A sequel, he says. I want to write another story. I want to redeem my city. 

The Musician composes a new tale of a radio show, set in the next era of his beloved city. The radio host is a sweet, kind-hearted gentleman and he’s known for giving dating advice to his listeners. A boy calls in every single day gushing about this girl who had stolen his heart, not realizing that his girl is calling the radio station just as frequently as he is. It’s a romantic comedy, a lighthearted story. It’s cute, endearing, fun. 

The Musician will not ask Death to sing this tale. He doesn’t want her influence here. This will be a story without pain and suffering.

First the Musician tries singing the story solo. The melodies are good and the tune carries well, but it’s not the same as before. The song doesn’t become real the way it did when Death sang. He tries and tries again, singing until his voice is scratchy and horse, but the story remains dormant and refuses to come to life.

He then goes to find other voices to help tell this tale. The Musician travels great lengths, crossing deserts and oceans and mountains to find another voice that can bring some joy into his city, but it is all in vain. Every song falls flat. Every new person who tries cannot achieve what he's looking for.

Meanwhile, his beloved city begins to slowly crumble and fall apart. It cannot survive without another story to keep it alive. Unless another true song is sung, it will suffer an agonizing, painful decay. 

Death steps out of the shadows. She’s been watching the Musician’s futile attempts, and she knows he’s growing desperate. Death tells him that she must be the one to sing to keep the city from falling apart. In order for the song to ring true, the melody requires more than the voice of a mere mortal. Death’s voice holds the depth of the yawning grave and the weight of an eternal blackness. It's the final cry of untold souls that fills her singing with an ancient power that the Musician has been missing. And she says she’ll do it. Death promises to sing for him, same deal as before. 

I’d rather let my city die, the Musician says. It would be kinder to put an end to its misery than force the city to endure another one of your cruel tales. Death laughs. The city cannot die unless she allows it to, and she has no intention of removing it from this realm. If Death does not release the city from this life it will hang forever in the balance, neither alive nor dead, an eternal wretched scream of torment lost in the void. Indeed, it would be a fate worse than death. 

His hands are tied; he has no other option. The Musician agrees to let Death sing in his radio hour. 

Death scoffs at his existing story and demands a rewrite. The new tale is unrecognizable from the original. Now there’s a civil war, a lover’s betrayal, and two of the three main characters are killed. The Musician watches helplessly as his innocent cast of characters fall and become dark and twisted versions of what they used to be. The radio host now has a sinister secret agenda, the boy transforms into a double crossing spy, and the girl becomes the most hunted criminal in the city. 

Together Death and the Musician sing the song of the new radio hour. The city is reformed and rebuilt, and it becomes whole once more. But it is not the city the Musician dreamed it would be. Instead of a beacon of hope, it now stands as a symbol of despair. 

And so it continues. The Musician writes his stories to keep his city alive, and Death twists their fate to meet her cruel desires. A heavenly realm becomes a nightmare battleground filled with monstrous creatures. A proud albino princess becomes a drug ridden addict surrounded by a lifeless carnage of broken limbs. A cute quirky cabaret becomes a gilded cage to hold clueless innocents prisoner. A jovial circus ringleader becomes a demented disgusting freakshow. A labyrinth of beautiful corridors becomes the playground for soulless metal machines devoid of love and empathy.

Death stalks each and every story. A long lost son is slaughtered moments before reuniting with his father. A noble sheriff, a critically acclaimed author, and a darling leader lose all hope and one by one each of them commits suicide. A daughter thrusts a sword through her father’s chest, unaware that she’s murdered the last surviving member of her family. The handful of characters that are allowed to live, they are driven to insanity or become broken beyond repair.

At each and every heartbreak, the Musician feels his characters’ pain as if it was his own. And at each and every tragedy, Death laughs, a sadistic smile dancing on her lips as she delights in the continuous carnage and bloodshed. 

The Musician is at his wit’s end when a Ladybug appears.

The Ladybug is born of spring and new life and hope. She’s young and inexperienced, but she’s also fierce and headstrong. She’s seen the Musician’s plight, and she’s determined to save him and his city. Her voice holds the power of the first flowers after a barren winter, and she can sing to keep the city alive. Death need not be involved. 

The Musician and the Ladybug write a new story. It’s a beautiful fairytale, with a proper happy ending. A touching love story where even the smallest creature finds the strength within herself to overcome all odds and rescue the one she loves. At long last, the Musician gets a chance to tell the kind of tale that he has always yearned to create. 

For a brief shining moment, Death is kept at bay. 

But Death always has the final say and she cannot be cheated. This is a lesson that everyone learns at some point, and the time has come for the Ladybug to come to terms with this cruel fact. 

Alas, the Ladybug has fallen in love with a human. She’s a gorgeous summer sweetheart who smells of lemon grass and who tastes of apple juice and peach. The Ladybug and her love spend blissful days delighting in each other’s presence, until Death steals the innocent soul and cruelly cuts the human’s life short. The Ladybug feels as if her heart has been torn to shreds; she has never before known such grief and loss as this.

Death comes to the distraught Ladybug and offers her a deal. She will be allowed to meet with her love for one day each year, so long as she never comes to the Musician's aid again. Break this promise, and her love will be lost to her forever and subjected to torments beyond imagination.

The Musician never sees the Ladybug again. 

Death stands at the Musician’s door once more. There’s a unbridled anger in her glare and an vehement rage in her step such that the Musician has never witnessed before. She is furious that a glimmer of hope has managed to escape from her clutches. Death will make him pay; the Musician and his city will certainly suffer for the rebellious act. 

Death demands that he write. This next story will be the most painful one yet, he knows this to be true before the first note is written. After the example she made of the Ladybug, no one else will dare come to the Musician’s aid ever again. They all know better than to defy Death. He is all alone; there is nobody left who can save him. Resigned to his fate, the Musician begins to compose the next story, bracing himself for the heartache that is soon to fall upon his beloved city. 

Death will always haunt these streets. After all, it was Death that gave this city life.


End file.
